South Korea’s Incheon Plans Gaming Destination to Rival Macau

By Seonjin Cha -
Oct 30, 2012

South Korea’s Incheon city, where
the nation’s busiest airport is located, plans to team up with a
group of investors to develop a 317 trillion won ($290 billion)
leisure and gaming destination three times the size of Macau.

The project called 8-City will be located in Yongyu-Muui
island district in Incheon and built over 18 years, according to
developer Eightcity Co., whose shareholders include luxury hotel
operator Kempinski AG, Korean Air Lines Co. and Daewoo
Engineering & Construction Co. The development will spread
across an 80 square-kilometer (31 square-mile) area, it said in
a statement today.

The new development, which will include hotels, casinos,
performance halls, shopping malls, a marina resort and Formula 1
race course, will help push South Korea up in the ranks of
Asia’s top destinations. The project will be built through 2030
and will draw 130 million visitors annually from the country and
overseas markets including China and Japan, the developer said.

“Eightcity is aiming to become a city that has the
advantages of gaming and entertainment offered by Las Vegas, the
shopping and financial hubs of Singapore and Hong Kong, as well
as Macau,” Shawn Park, chairman of Eightcity, told reporters
and investors at a briefing in Seoul today.

The cost will include construction and land, as well as
roads and other infrastructure developments, it said. The first
phase of construction will begin in the first half of next year,
according to the statement. The development is expected to add
930,000 jobs, it said.

Incheon is located 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Seoul
and has the main airfield to South Korea.

The board of the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund, set up
to channel $100 billion in aid annually to developing nations by
2020, proposed South Korea’s Songdo in Incheon city as the site
for its planned headquarters earlier this month. The selection
will be presented for approval at the UN climate summit
scheduled to start on Nov. 26 in Doha, Qatar.